California dreamin' on a winter day/Paul Peterson

February 26, 2014

There's been the string of more than 73 straight days below freezing. Numerous snow days for local schools and universities. And just plain, brutal numbing cold ... the kind they used to say would freeze a well digger's posterior.

And we can't overrule the possibility that an all-time record for snowfall (set in 1978-79) won't be established.

In the backdrop of all this misery, it's not hard to do the kind of old-fashioned California Dreamin' the late and great Mamas and Papas sang about back in the day.

I thought back to March Madnesses of the past when the annual boys basketball tournaments almost always featured a warm sun melting away the last of winter's snowbanks.

It was also a time for optimism and hope, when every team was starting out anew.

Maybe, if they played hard enough, they could duplicate the feat of a 5-13 Lake Linden (there was no Hubbell in the name) team that upset a 17-1 Ewen-Trout Creek outfit in the 1969 districts.

Or perhaps do something like a downstate team (I'm thinking it was Clare) did when it took a 4-14 record into the postseason and made it deep into state tournament in the late 1950s.

Of course, weatherwise, that's not probable in 2014. Just the other night, I encountered high snowbanks in Chassell - a town that traditionally gets less snow than most towns in our area. Not to mention bone-chilling cold straight from the latest polar vortex.

But on the subject of dreaming California style, I think back to a late March a few years ago. My family and I had just arrived in sunny Orlando for a week when the Weather Channel reported of some 48 inches of snow falling in Toivola.

I couldn't help but think, while taking in a Detroit Tigers exhibition game in 80 degree temperatures, that my neighbors were shoveling out large piles of the white stuff.

And to be perfectly honest, I didn't feel all that bad that we had missed the big storm by a day.

Or there was that New Year's Day in Fort Huacucha, Ariz. when a few of my Army buddies and I golfed a round.

Afterward, we lounged on the veranda of the club in 68 degree temperatures with a drink or two and talked about our folks back home.

The Upper Midwest was then going through a cold snap that had sent the thermometer plunging in the 30-degree below range.

But don't feel any envy ... I'm now paying for those warm and carefree days like the rest of the Copper Country.